DHS chief: Menendez intern should have been deported earlier

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that she didn’t order immigration agents to delay arresting an illegal immigrant and registered sex offender working for Sen. Robert Menendez’s New Jersey office in the middle of his re-election campaign last year.

Republicans said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ failure to arrest Luis Abrahan Sanchez Zavaleta in October showed the holes in President Obama’s new non-deportation policies, which try to steer immigration authorities away from arresting all but the most serious criminal immigrants.

According to Sen. Charles E. Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, documents show that agents had planned to arrest the man in October, ahead of the November election, but it was put off until December.

Ms. Napolitano said there were several reasons why the October arrest didn’t happen — including blaming Hurricane Sandy, which she said shut down law enforcement and prosecutors’ officers.